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Some VCU students walk out of commencement during Youngkin address
Dozens of Virginia Commonwealth University students walked out of their graduation ceremony Saturday morning as Gov. Glenn Youngkin delivered the commencement address, demonstrating support for Palestinians and protesting some of the Republican’s crusade against efforts to promote racial equity in education. The selection of Youngkin as speaker drew criticism from some ahead of the ceremony. The university’s chapter of the NAACP [last] week urged VCU officials to rescind the invitation, and some students in recent days said they would hold a walkout during the ceremony.
Schmude: Amid expansion, Chesapeake Regional seeks unnecessary price hikes
Chesapeake Regional Healthcare recently announced more than $150 million in new construction across Hampton Roads. In the same breath, the system has demanded dramatic price increases for Tidewater’s people and businesses in its current negotiations with Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia. I spend my time advocating for health care affordability because it is consumers and businesses that pay for health care, and they should not bear the burden of flagrant cost increases to fund Chesapeake’s expansion plans.
Budget details revealed: No new tax increases, no additional tax relief, more than $2.5 billion in K-12 funding
Less than 48 hours after the General Assembly’s budget negotiators and Gov. Glenn Youngkin struck a deal on a spending plan for the next biennium, the legislature’s money committees on Saturday morning released the details of the proposal that lawmakers will weigh when they return to Richmond for a special session on Monday. In its core, the $188 billion budget for fiscal years 2024-26 is identical with the conference report that the Democratic-controlled legislature approved by a bipartisan 62-37 vote in early March.
Fears grow as Mountain Valley Pipeline nears completion
The most visible scars from the Mountain Valley Pipeline are gone now from the pastoral property that Anne and Steve Bernard call home. But the Bernards remain troubled by what they can’t see. “Bottom line: I’m scared to death of that pipe sitting out there,” Steve Bernard said of the buried steel pipe, through which highly pressurized natural gas could soon begin flowing along a route that passes about 150 feet from the couple’s white frame house and adjacent art studio.
Graduating VCU students walk out during governor’s remarks
As Virginia Commonwealth University’s 2024 commencement kicked off at the Greater Richmond Convention Center, the student singing the national anthem wore a keffiyeh, a traditional Arab headscarf that has become a symbol of solidarity with Palestinians. Soon after, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the commencement speaker, took the stage and dozens of students walked out to cheers from the audience. After exiting the building, they held up signs like “No graduation as usual” and “Unacceptable leadership,” while chanting and marching to nearby Abner Clay Park.
Fredericksburg-area officials tell state their transportation needs
The state transportation leaders’ annual nine-meeting tour across Virginia stopped in Stafford County on Thursday. ... Virginia Department of Transportation Commissioner Stephen Birch told the small crowd the state’s 2025-2030 six-year improvement program draft calls for $19.1 billion in funding for roads, with another $6.3 billion for rail and public transportation. The total funding is down $5 million from the current Six-Year Improvement Plan.
Schapiro: Where were friends when Jews needed them?
A Colonial-era farm in Virginia’s tobacco belt is an emblem of Jewish survival at a time when much of the world — now gripped by an Israel-Hamas war in Gaza that, depending on one’s perspective, was caused by, or is causing, antisemitism — was clueless that a huge swath of the Jewish world was doomed. Hyde Park Farm — in Nottoway County, about an hour’s drive south of Richmond — was for several years immediately preceding World War II a peaceful sanctuary for about two dozen German-Jewish teenagers and several adults who fled there as Adolf Hitler’s murderous persecution of European Jews was beginning in earnest.
What we know about how UVa’s narrative differs from eyewitness accounts of May 4
University of Virginia officials have cited a number of justifications for their decision to have state police wearing tactical gear break up a small encampment of anti-war protesters on May 4, arresting 27 people and deploying pepper-spray into a crowd of students, faculty and members of the public. But witnesses and video footage raise questions about the claims made by President Jim Ryan, UVa Police Chief Tim Longo and other top officials.
Gibson: Online sexual abuse against women is imperiling our democracy
Last month, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s painful experiences as the victim of AI-driven sexual abuse appeared in a piece in Rolling Stone. Titled “Fake Photos, Real Harm: AOC and the Fight Against AI Porn,” the article explores how U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez first discovered the artificially generated explicit images of her, and her effort to amend the Violence Against Women Act in order to create civil liability in response to this new form of sexual abuse. Like so many people who read it, I was both horrified and motivated.
U-Va. officials defend arrests at protest as faculty seek review of decision
University of Virginia faculty on Friday called for an independent review of the use of police to clear a pro-Palestinian demonstration, but stopped short of condemning the decision to bring in state law enforcement officers. More than 25 people were arrested. University President James E. Ryan said he was sorry for the way things escalated as police moved in on demonstrators, and some faculty members said they were concerned the response was too heavy-handed. Ryan, though, did not say outright he would have acted differently, and the university’s police chief said officials felt compelled to disperse a group that included people with no connection to U-Va.